Archive of Our Own ^beta

When Jeongguk was twenty, he had priorities.

Attributes, characteristics, expendable income - all things he required for a potential suitor.

In his thirties, they turned into a wish list; he technically wanted the same things, but he also started to understand that perhaps he was being a bit - fanciful in thinking he’d get them all. Call that growth.

By his forties, Jeongguk had zero expectations and a closing window of a good time. “I gathered you here today because I have something to tell you,” Jeongguk announces to his best friends and former roommates on their biweekly brunch date. “I’m in perimenopause.”

“You said that like you’re announcing that you’re dying.” Jimin rolls his eyes in a way that garnered him almost world wide recognition, but from Jeongguk, is about to garner a swift kick.

“My eggs are dying!” he hisses back, seething over pure champagne, no juice needed today for the mimosa, thank you very much kind and patient waitress. Taehyung ordered it as soon as he sat down, twenty minutes late with no apology and his largest sunglasses perched on his face. Whatever he was trying to hide, Jeongguk doesn’t have time to ask.

“Are we reliving the ‘great death of the dream of motherhood’ theme again?” his alpha friend asks. Others might think he sounds bored, but Jeongguk understands him too well for that. Also, Taehyung took notes on his presentation two years ago when Jeongguk presented the facts that he was unlikely to fulfill said dream.

So his friends all call him dramatic. As a male omega, his chances of conceiving were always small, but unfortunately it was only a few years ago that he realized the actual window in which a miracle could happen closed faster as a male omega as well, meaning he would hit menopause earlier than most of this non-male omega counterparts. Now he’s single with no pup and no chance of a biological pup, and entering into official old age.

“I’ve made my peace with not having kids!” Jeongguk yelps, loud enough the women at the nearby table warily glance from the corner of their eyes. “I’m just too young to be in menopause!”

“Hence the peri part,” Jimin adds, so helpfully, wicked grin on his face.

“It’s different for me! The time in between the beginning stages and full blown menopause is shortened, because like everything else, it’s worse for male omegas!” At least Taehyung looks a little sympathetic now. Over the ice bucket he tops off Jeongguk’s drink.

“Jeonggukie.” Jimin tries to pinch his cheeks like they’re still little kids, and when the beta is unsuccessful, his fingers dart for Jeongguk’s side. “We were with you for the mourning period when you assumed you missed your chance at having kids because you’d never meet the right one. We’ll be here for you now, too.”

Great. Just like that, he suddenly feels like crying. And vomiting. It’s so hot in the restaurant. It’s never this hot. What is happening?

Between the three of them, Jimin is the only one with children despite Taehyung’s early dreams of being a sire from the time he was told he was too young to dream of such things, and Jeongguk, who once acquainted with him, cooed over cute baby clothes in between their undergraduate courses.

Jimin and his partner were shocked by the news of their pregnancy, the both of them male betas. They had less of a chance at conception than Jeongguk, and yet, here they were, gifted with the cutest five-year-old daughter that fortunately looks exactly like Seokjin but with the temperament of Jimin.

She’s probably Jeongguk’s best friend.

Not these two, both of whom are busier shoveling food down than fully acknowledging his woes. “Act like you care!” he demands, stealing the piece of smoked salmon off Jimin’s plate for himself.

Jimin protests while Taehyung frowns. “We do care. Whatever you think will make you feel best - we’ll go to that yoga retreat with you in the mountains again if you want-”

“Speak for yourself.”

“-or we change our diet when we’re altogether if it eases your symptoms-”

Jimin swipes the champagne bottle for himself.

“-but don’t you have a boyfriend who would be more than happy to help - uh - alleviate some of those symptoms?” Taehyung wags his eyebrows twice, then wags them thrice more when Jeongguk takes his moment.

The deep breath Jeongguk inhales whistles as it goes in and deafens Jimin when it comes out, if the beta leaping out of his seat is any good indication. “He isn’t my boyfriend!”

Taehyung laughs. “Does he know that?”

It’s unfortunate timing that his phone, left on the table next to his elbow, lights up at that moment. Kim Namjoon is still listed as annoying alpha from bar, and he isn’t ever going to be listed as anything else. How could he be? He’s fifteen years Jeongguk’s junior!

So they’ve been spending a lot of time together recently. Jeongguk met Namjoon at the same time his friends did, on a night out, and it was all Jimin’s fault! Well, maybe it was Seokjin’s fault, but by extension, that also made it Jimin’s fault. Since his friends already knew of the alpha who had the unfortunate good looks of someone who couldn’t be ignored annoyingly combined with the personality of a golden retriever, he didn’t see a reason to keep them separate, but Namjoon meeting his mom was an accident. It definitely didn’t mean they were dating.

“We are not going back to your place,” Jeongguk groans approximately sixty-seven minutes later, lap full of his booty call for the past - what’s it been? Six months? Shit - eight months? Jeongguk isn’t heartless; he recognizes that Namjoon is a catch, but a catch for someone in their twenties, not someone his age. They’re just - having fun. Jeongguk is breaking him in for his future mate, teaching him things like how to prepare eggs in different ways but also how to clean the bottom of a burnt pan and recognizing when it’s time to let the pan go.

For his part, Namjoon is the wet dream of an alpha. Tall, broad, muscles that only exist for a very short span of an alpha’s life. Currently, he rocks a bleach blonde buzz cut that defies all of Taehyung’s beloved color theories, not to be confused with traditional color theories, but when they met it was dark blue. He looked cool, standing there at the bar and acting like he’d been waiting for Jeongguk all his life in his fitted tank, leaning back on his elbows, earrings reflecting the changing colors of the lights. Their eyes met, he crooked his neck with a smile, and it pulled him in like a moth to flame.

It really was that cliche.

Worse, he had to find out that alphas who look like that can fuck like that too. Jeongguk’s previous partners ranged in skill and expertise, but the alphas of past who had a fraction of muscle like Namjoon were both mediocre at best in bed, perhaps used to bed mates who fell over themselves to be with someone cut like the cover of an alpha’s health magazine.

Those kinds of conquests were less important to him now. For many years, but then this insatiable monster happened. “Hyung,” Namjoon groans, pawing at his hips, pressed up against his back in the department store. Jeongguk just wanted to buy him one thing, but now he’s got to see Namjoon in these slacks that he just found.

“Baby. Hyung.”

“Am I your hyung or your baby?” Jeongguk sighs. Oh to be the older in a relationship, and an older omega at that.

Namjoon grins, that cheesy grin of his. It reminded Jeongguk in the beginning of exactly what Namjoon was to him - nothing serious - but today it makes him pause. “You can be both,” he says. He says it with aigoo and pout, then growls when it doesn’t elicit the reaction he wants. It’s when he nips at the back of Jeongguk’s neck, his knees immediately buckling at the sensation, that Jeongguk growls back, and Namjoon laughs.

“What’s wrong with my place? It’s closer.” He sounds like a petulant brat! Why does Jeongguk indulge him?

The alpha’s teeth graze over the top vertebrae at his neck. Jeongguk would be on the floor if not for the arms wrapped around his waist. “Let’s go home, baby.”

“N-not yours, though.”

“But baby, I need you now,” Namjoon groans in his ear, and the hot breath travels down his eardrum straight to his pussy in what should not be anatomically possible.

One of the things Jeongguk made peace with long ago is that he cannot say no to anyone, which is how he ends up rushing into a single stall restroom with Namjoon entering behind him almost immediately. “I told you to wait at least a minute!” The protest not only falls on unhearing ears, but Namjoon has Jeongguk hoisted up in his arms and pressed against the mirror before he gets them all out.

“Did you - did you lock it?” he gasps between Namjoon sucking viciously into his neck and a particularly forceful thrust up against him between their clothing. Jeongguk leans his weight forward onto the alpha’s shoulders so he can spread his legs deliciously wider around the alpha’s thick waist.

His waist is both cute and sexy.

Jeongguk hates it.

“You put up such a fuss just to rut against me like this.” Namjoon laughs, resting the small of Jeongguk’s back against the wall so he can palm himself through his pants, teasing him because Jeongguk made the mistake of once admitting there was not a single sight as hot to him as the hard outline of an alpha cock fully clothed. Who needs to look at it unclothed? It’s better this way, and he stands by that even though the sight of Kim Namjoon’s naked dick for the first time was nearly a religious experience.

Now he gets to watch Namjoon squeeze himself near the base then move his hand along the length of it, slowly but surely squeezing one handful at a time, because he’s a big boy, and Jeongguk deserves nice things.

But then he doesn’t even use it on him - the alpha sets him on the sink, pulls off Jeongguk’s bottoms and panties in one go, and eats him out until he’s quivering against the mirror, overstimulated and kicking at him to stop. Namjoon has to help him down and back into his items before they hastily retreat out the side exit of the store.

“Thought you needed something,” he says quietly in the backseat of the car, pawing at the corner of Namjoon’s lips.

“I did!” he says brightly. “And I got it, too!” When he hooks his chin over Jeongguk’s head to scent there idly, rubbing his face back and forth, the omega listens to the way he deeply inhales and finds himself unconsciously mimicking his breathing. In and out. In and out. It is a peaceful moment in the midst of what often feels like a fever dream when they’re together; he can’t remain his poised and professional self when he sees Namjoon. Instead, he acts like a barely presented omega pup, desperate and wanton.

The moment passes, because Namjoon blows a raspberry on top of his head. Jeongguk shoves him hard enough the car sways at the red light, their driver glancing back at them.

Inside his apartment, Jeongguk gracefully removes his shoes and jacket, ready to begin his strict skincare regime. He trips over the tennis shoe flung haphazardly in his direction. “Joon!”

“Sorry, hyung!”

With a grunt, Jeongguk kicks the alpha’s shoes back over towards the front door where all of his are neatly lined up, because modeling behavior is supposed to be best practice. He looks at the worn shoes in his hand. “What happened to the pair we bought you last month?”

Namjoon’s head pops up from over the back of the couch. “Wore them once, but they gave me a blister.”

“You have to break them in!”

“What’s wrong with those?” Namjoon flops over the back of the couch; funny how it only looks small when he’s on it. Jeongguk dramatically waves them in the air in lieu of a white flag; bickering with a twenty-something over sneakers is not something he needs to do at home. He does it enough at work with the new upcoming stylists who think they know better than him.

Others might call it an endearing personality trait, but the thing that confuses Jeongguk about Namjoon and his lack of wardrobe is the fact that he has the funding for it. When they first started hooking up, Jeongguk told him under no circumstances would he go out in public with him unless he had a proper dinner jacket. For a time, Namjoon jokingly called Jeongguk sugar mama, and the only thing Jeongguk is more grateful for than his favorite low calorie ice cream is that Park Jimin never heard it. It was bad enough that Taehyung and Seokjin did. Jeongguk has a new respect for Kim Seokjin that he was able to keep his mouth shut about it, something previously unimaginable to Jeongguk. Those two knew and shared everything with each other, but maybe Jeongguk’s lava colored face was enough for him for once.

However.

It’s not his fault Namjoon told him he worked at a school. The only person Jeongguk knows that works at a school is a teacher, and everyone knows that teachers are criminally underpaid! It was only a couple of months ago that he figured out Namjoon worked in the business office of the very same university that Jeongguk’s parents desperately begged him to apply to, but at that point the omega had threatened to legally emancipate himself if they didn’t accept his decision to go into a fashion school.

His parents can now happily gloat that their omega son styles the stars in their editorial spreads, AND -

His brother sent him a picture of a newly acquired magnet on their fridge that boasts they are a SNU parent.

But neither of us went to SNU?

Your boyfriend counts, dummy.

Regardless, Namjoon makes more than enough money to buy his own clothes.

It’s just that Jeongguk’s favorite physique to dress is precisely Namjoon’s body type.

“Never mind. It’s almost time for my evening tea and bath anyway.” Another recently developing joy of perimenopause - his stomach, for the first time ever, has become sensitive with age. He used to pride himself on eating well enough to keep up with alphas twice Namjoon’s size, but now the sight of ramyeon halfway down the block will make him feel sick. For the past few weeks, Jeongguk has visited several tea spots to try out different blends that claim to ease an upset stomach or market “beauty for the mature.”

As of now, Jeongguk has one window of opportunity for eating during the day - usually in early afternoon - without feeling ill. They are well outside that window now, so while Jeongguk goes through his nightly rituals, Namjoon orders himself dinner: greasy fried chicken. For a brief moment, it smells good to him, but then his stomach lurches.

“Ugh!” he covers his nose, sipping his tea from under his hand. “That smells disgusting!”

“But, it is in fact, delicious.” Namjoon at least has the decency to move away from him, poised over the kitchen sink as he gobbles down chicken with neither utensil nor gloved hand, just his bare fingers like a heathen.

“Is it melon chicken?”

Namjoon looks guilty as he denies it.

Jeongguk removes himself to the balcony with a book and a blanket but barely makes it through three pages before his eyes feel heavy. He’s read nearly half of this book, and what has happened? Menopause is affecting his memory too! Just thinking about it makes him upset and distracted enough that his hand jerks to tear out the better part of one page.

Namjoon roams out onto the balcony through the open doorway, crawling on all fours, prowling with sharp eyes and sculpted muscles rippling under his skin. Jeongguk clamps his legs shut at the sight of him; the bastard stripped down to his underwear just to sit at his feet like a damn dog.

“Up boy,” he teases, only half heartedly until Namjoon leans back, hardness on full display in his tight black briefs.

Jeongguk burns up.

The alpha slowly slithers up into his lap, tongue out. “Enough of that!” Jeongguk shouts, then laughs at Namjoon’s playful licks. He even pretends to hump his leg. At least, Jeongguk thinks it’s all pretend. “This time, you knot me! Properly!”

In his bed, between his luxurious cooling sheets and a few of his favorite stuffies that Namjoon moved back into the nest when he stumbled upon them hidden in the walk-in closet, Jeongguk lies on top of a chest that must only be so broad to be a bed in of itself. Happy. Sated. Stuffed full with a knot that throbs like a vibrator. Jeongguk never knew knots like this existed.

He sighs, happily.

There is a reason he keeps Namjoon around.

Also, the massages he gives. He’s so good at them, even at this awkward angle, that when the knot deflates - just as suddenly as it inflates with a pop - Jeongguk doesn’t realize it. He’s enjoyed plenty of sex with beta or omega partners without a knot, but when it comes to it, he’s always gotten weepy whenever a knot goes down.

The first time they hooked up - approximately twenty minutes after meeting - he was so sure Namjoon would make fun of him the same way as every other alpha did. Instead, Namjoon asked if he was alright, and when Jeongguk nodded but refused to look at him, gently held him, even sang some croony song to him. Poorly. But. It was the thought that counts.

Now when he wrings a knot out of the alpha, Namjoon gives him a little time, a little space, and then checks his face for remaining tears, offering either a pithy comment made to make him laugh or a rub down. Tonight, Jeongguk demands the massage, wiggling his ass happily. Jeongguk sighs dramatically when he notices the background on the alpha’s phone - it’s a shitty candid snapshot of him with his mouth full, eyes crossed, and cheeks bulging as he eats a hot dog. He let the alpha keep it under penalty of death if anyone were to ever see it, then he made it his damn background and his precious mother has seen it.

He’s half asleep when his stomach turns. He frowns, pushing his face into Namjoon’s neck. Post sex, post knot especially, his scent gets extra spicy, which - might not be helpful at this precise moment, but it still smells good to him. Comforting.

It’s only later, after he’s been asleep long enough that there is a shameful amount of drool pooled on the alpha’s clavicle, that his stomach really wakes him. “S’up?” Namjoon’s blurry face watches him get out of bed because Jeongguk refuses to wear his reading glasses around him anymore. It makes the alpha too damn horny for one, but also he doesn’t need any more unflattering photos saved to a phone that is more likely than not to be left behind on a bus one day.

He’s the goddamn editor of the Korean branch of the premier fashion periodical! He can’t have anyone playing fast and loose with compromising photos!

Jeongguk sits up from where he’s curled over himself by the fridge, desperately alternating between water and bottled oolong that Jimin says is tasteless in a tacky way, not a flavorful way. Distinctions have to be made, Jeongguk guesses.

Boyfriend! Hmph. Everyone thinks Namjoon is his boyfriend. Will he ever be able to admit that sometimes, in his weakest moments, he accidentally thinks of him as his boyfriend?

Namjoon isn’t a boyfriend. He’s a boy toy. A young - much younger - and very hot - boy toy. Everyone tells him to go for it. It doesn’t need to be serious to be fun, but here he is, an omega entering menopause, and he has to laugh at himself because what does he need an alpha with a stomach of steel to match his abs around for? To witness his indigestion at two in the morning?

Ugh.

It burns.

His stomach absolutely betrays him, and what for? Hasn’t he been kind to it? Jeongguk’s always watched what he eats (quality wise, maybe less so quantity wise), but especially in his thirties, he’s had the patience and perseverance of a saint. A goddamn saint! …Well, other than some of his time with Namjoon. Or Seokjin. They both were bottomless pits, and maybe Jeongguk indulged in a donut or god forbid, that hotdog. It only had potatoes fried to the outside of it and cheese in the middle!

He doesn’t even make it to the trash, Jeongguk throws up in his kitchen sink. It’s mostly water - he didn’t eat a large solid meal that day, so the bile stings his eyes.

Jeongguk doesn’t quite wash it all down before Namjoon stumbles out. His nose wrinkles, and bristling, Jeongguk won’t wait for him to say whatever he’s about to say. “Get out,” he says, rubbing at his face before he catches himself. He can have a weak stomach, but he cannot afford more wrinkles.

“Wah?”

“Time for you to go. Bye bye, Namjoon-ah.”

“What!” Namjoon squawks when Jeongguk slaps his ass. “It’s the middle of the night!”

“As if you don’t crawl around doing all sorts of things in the middle of the night!”

Namjoon scoffs. “Well, sure, but they’re all right here-” He protests all the way to the door, although Jeongguk has to admit it’s fun throwing his clothing at him. Namjoon throws his shirt right back and he laughs at Jeongguk’s face. “I’ll see you later, hyung-”

The door slam goes in his face, and that makes Jeongguk grin.

He hears Namjoon’s soft chuckling all the way down the hallway.

On his bedside table, an interlopping phone mocks him. Jeongguk picks it up, corner cracked, and opens it, because the doofus leaves it unlocked. Now would be the time to change the background, but sighing, Jeongguk leaves it.

In bed, he tosses and turns until the room glows in early morning sunlight.

“You look like shit,” Jimin greets him in the morning. The two of them tend to be in earlier than many of their peers, and even the birds that resolutely make their nests outside on the balcony no matter how many maintenance workers attempt to chase them away are still quiet.

“Did our princess wake you up early this morning?” Jeongguk asks. Even for Jimin, it’s too early.

“Which one?” Jimin laughs. “Jin hyung started it, but our daughter finished it. It was battle royale style karaoke to the tunes of every children’s television program that’s debuted in the past decade.”

That makes Jeongguk genuinely laugh. “Don’t be silly, there is no competition between them.” His baby girl is gonna be a star, he knows it, everyone knows it, and it will totally be under his guidance and influence, not Kim Seokjin or Park Jimin.

“Get your starry eyed sights off my child!” Jimin bellows, indignant, hand on his hip. He says it as if he isn’t the one wearing sunglasses larger than his head that have been out of style for literal decades. Ridiculous.

“You have no idea the potential!”

“You think I don’t know my own child’s potential?”

Bickering is better than coffee. Jeongguk perks right up somewhere between dodging Jimin’s side pinch and laughing at his combusting face as they tussle out of the smaller, less popular breakroom, and towards their respective offices. He’s tempted to walk back out when he opens the door and some of the top papers slide off their mountain to the floor.

In between ambushes from the junior editorial staff asking for details for an event that he doesn’t have the heart to tell them that none of them will likely be able to attend, and the sour faced AV guy who hates all of Jeongguk’s dreams, he successfully manages to ignore imploring messages from a certain someone.

Until they come with an attached imploring selfie. “Wow, he’s cute!” one of the interns chirps over his shoulder. His first impulse is to agree, but scowling, Jeongguk closes his phone and asks her what she thinks of the print layout.

The pout on his phone is asking Jeongguk to meet his friends over the weekend.

“Yah, what’s the big deal?” Kim Seokjin asks, flippantly waving his hand about. “Like dating a younger man is so taboo anymore!”

“Says the younger man in their marriage.” Jeongguk rolls his eyes. Seokjin was younger than Jimin by five years, which according to Seokjin, was the most respectable age gap.

“I was born to be doted on.” Seokjin’s nose goes up, and his arms go crossed.

“I can’t believe you parent a child.”

“The world’s most perfect child!”

Well. Jeongguk can’t disagree, but nor can he verbally ever agree, so he stuffs his mouth full of a donut. Seokjin makes a face. “Are you okay?” He makes another face like he smells something fishy instead of whatever sugary monstrosity he ordered. “It’s been a while since you’ve willingly eaten fried dough with me without a lot of goading first.”

“Your influence,” Jeongguk replies without missing a beat, but perhaps missing some heat. “Doesn’t it seem like meeting friends is a bit much? We’re not dating. We’re never going to court!”

The sigh Seokjin lets out is loud - but mostly long - enough that more than one person looks at them. “Jeongguk. Jeonggukie.” It’s the same aspirated tone that he sometimes gives to his daughter, as rare as that is, because she is perfect. “If you like him enough to hang out with him, even casually, for so many months, then maybe you should consider him a little too.”

Jeongguk frowns; it's hard not to feel offended around Seokjin. “What’s that mean?”

The beta’s lips twist, as if considering his words when he so often is the first to speak his mind. “I mean he has needs and wants too, hyung, and if you like him at all - which you do, you spend a lot of time with him, so stop right there - then you should give a little. That’s all.”

That weekend Jeongguk blames on Kim Seokjin. They end up at a bar for early drinks, an atmosphere comfortable enough given how they met, but Namjoon keeps his hand around Jeongguk’s waist all night long, introducing his best friends, Min Yoongi and Jung Hoseok. One is a childhood friend, the other a coworker of only a couple years, although which is which would be hard to ascertain since no one explicitly disclosed themselves and the three of them all move in unison in their own way.

“So, you’re like, semi famous?” Hoseok asks, swaying into him, rosy cheeked and visibly tipsy almost immediately after the first shot the three of them insisted upon they all four take.

Jeongguk’s a good sport. He can take shots with twenty-year-olds.

Namjoon will be holding him up the rest of the night, but he can do it.

“No, no-”

“Yeah, he is! Guess who he has as a contact in his phone?” Namjoon gushes about some omega actress they’re all obsessed with, Yoongi’s quiet gasp and then strangled yell the most animated he’s been all night.

“We’re friends?” Jeongguk has known her for years. Hell, from when he worked in basic accessorizing.

“Yeah, because you’re famous!” Yoongi interjects.

Nodding, Namjoon shouts VIP! at the same time as he suddenly lifts Jeongguk airborne. Already, he feels so dizzy that Jeongguk hears Yoongi’s blink like a cartoon character and when he notices Hoseok getting weepy as the night goes on, he also feels weepy.

It’s a sympathy thing for omegas, and nothing else. If he sees another cry, he’s gonna cry.

Even as Namjoon gently holds him upright, including easing him down steps when they come at him out of nowhere, and keeping him in his lap when he becomes too tired to eat on his own, it doesn’t mean anything. Not even when Hoseok leans into his space - their space - to blink soulfully at them and declare them the world’s cutest couple.

Jeongguk picks up their bar tab and their all they can eat barbeque check. When he lazily signs his name on the receipt, he looks up at two wide eyed people. “Wow, you didn’t even look at the price,” Hoseok whispers.

“Is this what it’s like to date someone older?” Yoongi gapes. He and Hoseok exchange a look. “Jeongguk-ssi, do you have any single friends?”

They move out of the aroma and din of sizzling meat and warm bodies over flames into the cooler night, but Jeongguk still struggles with equilibrium. Namjoon deftly picks him up from the knees without asking, and on another evening, minus the last round of soju, Jeongguk might have protested being carried like an omegan bride, but tonight he continues dancing in the alpha’s hold. He and Hoseok are nailing the choreo to the song playing - or, was playing. Where did the music go?

It’s Hoseok who stills first, nose flaring in the air. At first Jeongguk thinks his new friend’s nose might lead them to their next destination, maybe with something sweet, but instead the young omega sniffs his way right into Jeongguk. He wrinkles his nose. “Hyung, I don’t mean to be rude, but I think your heat is nearly here!”

Jeongguk laughs, leaning forward to bop the omega’s nose. “You are so cute! Hyung doesn’t have heats anymore!” He hiccups. “Too old.”

Hoseok’s wide eyes exchange a look with Yoongi first, then Namjoon. “But hyung - you definitely smell-” Yoongi inhales deeply from a distance. What’s he supposed to smell like that? “Ripe.”

“Hyung hasn’t had a heat in a year. What do you think of that, big boy? You’re boning someone too old to cycle anymore.” Jeongguk pinches Namjoon’s cheek first, then thinks of how old he sounds. Boning. Shit.

Namjoon’s smile never falters though. It’s annoying, really. “That’s hot.”

He scoffs. “It’s hot that I don’t get heat?”

“It’s hot that you’re so mature.”

Currently, Jeongguk’s drunk in the arms of a much younger alpha because maybe he can’t hold his liquor as well anymore (just maybe) and for the first time in weeks feels some pride because some kids are impressed that he can pay for their bottomless stomachs. Even Yoongo, slight as he is, ate more than Jeongguk has in - years.

It isn’t exactly how he thought he might feel at his age. He thought there would be more afternoon teas or trips to Jeju with friends where they’d stay at the spa and work their way through the list of treatments.

On their way back to Jeongguk’s home, Namjoon comments how much his friends liked him. “How do you know? Don’t you need to confer first?”

Namjoon moans unabashedly on the street, two boys his age stopping in their tracks to watch them go by, Jeongguk bopping along in his arms as the alpha walks with his ultra wide stance. Dick swinging stance, Jeongguk would have called it in his twenties. “This is why you’re so hot. Confer. Most people my age could never!”

Could never what? Jeongguk huffs. He needs his boyfriend to stop making nonsense.

Boyfriend-

Jeongguk shakes his head, then immediately freezes. “I’m gonna be sick,” he moans, right before spewing over Namjoon’s shoulder, a terrible plan because the rest of the ride home he spends plastered to the alpha’s neck desperate to suck air directly from his neck lest he smell what just happened.

To his credit, Namjoon doesn’t seem all that bothered by the grossness. As soon as they’re through the door, he sets Jeongguk down, leaning him against the frame, then shucks off the soiled jacket and shirt. “Do NOT put that on the floor, Kim Namjoon, so help me-”

He squeals as Namjoon hefts him back up and down the hall, helping Jeongguk into the bathroom to brush his teeth and wash his face. By the time he comes back with water, Jeongguk’s sweaty and flustered and so, so sick.

“My stomach is trying to kill me,” he groans, but he refuses to do anything undignified, like sleep in front of the toilet. He isn’t twenty. He’ll leave that to the twenty-something crowd.

“You’ll feel better in the morning,” Namjoon says quietly, brushing his hair back from where it sticks to his face. Jeongguk leans into it until he careens back into the alpha’s legs.

It’s quiet when the alpha starts the shower, then quiet when he helps him into it, holding him up under the spray of water. Namjoon isn’t a quiet person, not with him - he can be, when he’s on his own - Jeongguk’s seen him in his element at the park when he catches the alpha waiting on him, nose buried in a book with his tie half undone and suit jacket on the back of a bench - but that’s never been a part of their dynamic. Their dynamic has been semi chaotic since first meeting, first knot, and first frustration fueled denial that they were ever going to hook up again.

Incapacitated, this is what it’s like. Jeongguk melts into the alpha’s chest under the water while he gently massages his arms and shoulders, then scalp. His stomach still cramps, but the fingers in his hair are the last thing he remembers before he passes the fuck out.

For all of three hours.

It’s early morning when his stomach can no longer be ignored, not even soothed with a heavy alpha arm around his waist. He crawls out of bed, hesitating at the threshold of the bathroom to exit to the rest of his home. He ends up in the kitchen, pacing, clutching his stomach while he tea brews. What was he thinking, drinking that much? Ugh. He feels gross, like his skin is about to burst at the seams. Sweaty, too, beads of it at his temples and between his chest. That’s how he knows it might be fever.

“Baby?” Namjoon calls for him, the grogginess in his voice making it even deeper.

Shit. Even when he’s ill, his voice will make him wet.

Jeongguk squirms. How uncomfortable. “Get out!” he yells, kicking feebly with his foot in the alpha’s direction. “I’m sick.”

Namjoon, the idiot, just lumbers closer, crowding Jeongguk to his chest and kissing the top of his head. “Sure, baby. Heat sick!”

Groaning, Jeongguk would push him away if not for the fact that, unfortunately, his omega finds Namjoon’s scent comforting. At this point, it elicits a physical response from him, which is probably a sign he needs to put up boundaries, or at least enforce the ones they once had, but explain that to his hands which clutch at Namjoon’s shoulders, ready to tear through skin in lieu of a shirt because the alpha refuses to wear clothing at his apartment. Told him that if he was allowed to leave some items there, he might, but until then he’d be nude.

“Why do you keep joking about that? You know I can’t have a heat anymore!” Maybe Jeongguk hasn’t explained to the alpha how hurtful it is that at the peak of his career, when Jeongguk has so many of the things he wanted and more, one of life’s basic facets suddenly vanished? Something he took for granted, and sure, hated about himself at one point of his life, but what is the most unfortunate truth if not that he misses heats now that he doesn’t have them? They were normalcy. They’re supposed to be a regular part of an omega’s life, and if he doesn’t have them, what does he have?

He was too late to find a mate and have a family with them, or at least one that included a biological child of his own.

His stomach curdles. In pain, he whines, and Namjoon picks him up. “C’mon. Back to bed with you. Maybe we can make a nice nest together?”

Boundaries will have to wait for another day. Right now, Jeongguk deserves this - someone to take care of him. Self care is allowing others to do it for you, that’s what he’s always said. It’s nice, having someone to boss around in the nest; he’s never nested with an alpha before, only his omega roommate during school years.

“No, thicker up here! This is where my head goes, and where I’ll bite when you-” Jeongguk freezes. He feels his body distinctly clench in one area.

“When I knot you?” Namjoon laughs. The bastard’s knot is too big to simply take without Jeongguk expressing the urge to gnaw on something like a teething toddler. Having a nest with thicker portions to both rest his head and teeth is a necessity.

Namjoon reaches around where Jeongguk is on all fours to cup his stomach. “If it feels like a heat,” he says, with a smile.

Jeongguk elbows him.

Later, when the room suffocates even him and he barks at the alpha to open the window. “If it smells like a heat.”

Within an hour, all clothing between them shed and added to the nest on top of a layer of heating pads, Jeongguk sweats from every pore of his body, unable to rest but unable to move. Everything pricks at his skin, including an annoying alpha, who both makes it worse, lying draped over his back, gently nuzzling and scenting him from head to toe, but also better, with his responding scent. Even though his stupid big body only makes him warmer, whenever he tries to separate from him, Jeongguk panics, head spinning faster.

Menopause is surely hell.

Off and on, Namjoon plays with him, fingering his sensitive slit, in and out, all around in small, wet circles. Jeongguk doesn’t realize how much the alpha’s worked him until he sees Namjoon’s hand pass by the side of his face, glistening on more than one digit.

“Were those - were these all just inside me?” No wonder he feels so devastatingly empty. He put four in him and then left him hanging.

“You ready now, baby?” Namjoon blows air in his ear and if Jeongguk had the energy, he would kick or bite him, but nothing will move him from his current position, which just so happens to be on all fours, face down, ass up. Sometimes that’s just what feels best. It isn’t about presenting.

“Ready for what?” Jeongguk moans, fingers scrambling for purchase. Why does he feel so weak? Why didn’t Namjoon leave when he told him? Now they’ll both get sick and no one will be able to take care of anyone!

And why does he have to feel the urge to be stuffed up on top of everything else? Ugh. Namjoon, for all his faults, is too stupidly polite to ever just give it to him the way he wants without express permission to enter, but Jeongguk is ill. He shouldn’t want him to settle inside him, but knots can be comforting in their own way, and Jeongguk thinks it wouldn’t be so bad to lock down his favorite blanket…

“Can you - will you just -” Every word he has to grunt out annoys him. Jeongguk growls, but Namjoon settles him with a hand across the back of his neck. The touch is cooling; he sighs happily.

“Okay, then, hyung.” Namjoon kisses the back of his neck, low, right where the top of his spine starts. “Just let me know if there’s anything you need. I know I’ve never shared your cycle before.”

“I told you before, I-”

All coherent thought gets forcibly pushed out of his head through his lungs with a single exhale as Namjoon pushes into him. Oh shit - that’s good! Just one single, complete thrust in so they’re flush is all it takes for his brain to shut off. If his stomach still aches, he wouldn’t know it, because Jeongguk feels still, feels full, feels - totally fine?

Shit.

“Okay, baby?” Namjoon asks in his ear, thrusting more steadily now. The problem with his voice is that it sounds the same fucking as it does asking Jeongguk to get at his back pimple, which is to say sexy all the time, but Jeongguk will not moan. He won’t. There’s no need. He hears it all the time. He just needs to hang his head a little more and shift his weight between his knees.

“Think I can get in five knots before noon?” he asks, just to be a pest.

Jeongguk moans.

He should be annoyed, because could Namjoon be more of an alpha about this? In Jeongguk’s time of need, it isn’t about him, it’s about how many knots he thinks he can do? “What the fuck are you waiting for?” Jeongguk yelps, in between two big hands that cup his chest and pull him up and back to the alpha’s broader pecs. The itch under his skin is less itchy now and more oozy, liquid, molten urges that he can’t quite name, all he knows is that he feels annoyance more than the somersaulting stomach seizures finally.

He hardly recognizes his own pleasure when he comes around Namjoon’s knot, not quite but close to a simultaneous orgasm with his knot. Sometimes they sneak up on him like that - Jeongguk’s been accused of getting a little lost in himself, and apparently he can be so far away that he doesn’t even keep track of his own orgasms. All he knows is that the knot does settle him, in part due to the way Namjoon covers him.

Alphas. The original weighted blanket.

“Breathe, baby.” Namjoon pulls his face up from the blankets he chews on. “Please don’t suffocate yourself down there.”

“Ugh, your stupid knot.” Jeongguk squirms, both repulsed and delighted. Only one of those emotions Namjoon is allowed to see. “It’s too big.”

“Uh huh.”

Sometimes Jeongguk freezes under the size of the knot, afraid to move, to tug it at all lest there his body attempt to accommodate more room it really can not. This morning, he kicks his hips back and relishes the jerk between them. Namjoon, rather than surprised, licks his lips to reach under him and thumb at his opening.

“How long?” Jeongguk pants, wriggling his ass around. He worked hard for this ass and he’s still got it, might as well flaunt it.

“Til my knot goes down? It’s the first of your heat, so-”

Jeongguk whips his head to look over his shoulder.

“I mean it’s the first knot of the day, so.” Namjoon beams, big and cheesy, the kind of smile that would have killed Jeongguk’s vibe if it were on anyone else. He never looks too serious, Namjoon, and for some reason, it irritates Jeongguk to no end when he meets people like that. Rationally, he knows the alpha is responsible, reliable. Apparently he’s a favorite at work, which Jeongguk would have assumed is boasting if not for the fact that Yoongi, the verified coworker, all but lamented how his dongsaeng stole the show from him as soon as he started.

The calm he feels doesn’t last long. Certainly not as long as his alpha’s fat knot. Jeongguk whines about it in a way that is not dignified, but it does the trick. Grunting, Namjoon squeezes and milks himself so he can wriggle it out before it deflates, which is fortuitous because Jeongguk hops up and pushes Namjoon down, flat on his back, so he can grind against it, trapped against the alpha’s toned tummy as he slides up and down.

“You’re so cute when you growl!”

“I’m not cute! I’m forty-one years old and I am sophisticated and fun!”

“Yeah.” Namjoon cradles one of his cheeks only to then pinch it. “You’re not a baby at all when you want something.”

Jeongguk doesn’t need to move a muscle to pinch back.

Well.

He moves a muscle, because his pussy contracts so hard that he’s sure the alpha feels.

“I got you.” Namjoon alternates between jacking and milking his knot so it’s more deflated, only to fuck him a minute later, eventually freshly popping one.

“Does that hurt?” Jeongguk asks, sprawled out on top of his chest after what was honestly a pitiful excuse for riding, but he’s old and tired. If Namjoon wants him on top, he’ll have to put in the work!

“I’ve never heard of another alpha manipulating their knot as much as you do.”

Namjoon shrugs, the fabrics of the nest under his shoulders wrinkling around his head like a modest halo. “It’s not comfortable, but it’s a skill that I developed that certainly comes in handy.” Images of a teenage Namjoon flash before Jeongguk’s eyes, knotted to someone and in a situation where he was desperate to be unknotted, and fast.

Strangely enough, Jeongguk feels a pang of - fondness? - thinking of past Namjoon who he never met. He wonders if he was the sort of kid that played with dolls or if his parents only gave him action figures. He wouldn’t know because he’s dodged all mentions of the alpha’s family.

“Do you have any baby pictures?”

“Don’t most people have some baby pictures?”

“No, do you have any baby pictures on you? At your home?”

“...No. But my mom has plenty!”

Rolling his eyes, Jeongguk realizes he’s feeling loose already. The heavy sigh of resentment is as real as the excitement for Namjoon to pull out then eat him out.

They make it through knot three before Jeongguk falls asleep, tucked up in Namjoon’s arms. It’s the first time he’s fucked awake after that, something that they’ve talked about previously but not anything Jeongguk’s experienced. Has Namjoon? Did he attempt this with another? Some omega or a willing beta partner? Namjoon’s even fooled around with other alphas, he told Jeongguk that night one for whatever reason when Jeongguk was still grappling with his justification for sleeping with someone so much younger.

“Don’t worry, baby, one more and you’ll be able to sleep for longer, okay?” Namjoon says it all so clearly, as if it makes absolute sense, his hand wrapped around Jeongguk’s forehead even as he’s thrusting. He groans, hot and sweaty even though Namjoon’s skin still feels cooler. Normally he’s the sweaty one in his sleep.

It’s hard to concentrate over the furious cramp in his stomach; sex certainly gives him something else to focus on, but he’s appalled with himself for not being appalled to begin with. Aging truly is humbling.

He sleeps then eats, held upright by Namjoon while the alpha alternates between feeding him then himself, first a banana then some jjuk. “Bland,” Jeongguk wrinkles his nose.

“I promise to make you the spiciest ramyun after this is all over, okay?”

“Shouldn’t you be at work?”

Namjoon puts down the spoon to pick up the shirt he wore the night before, deposited into the nest and more than a little gross now. “Hold.”

Jeongguk takes it, but he asks why. Namjoon doesn’t reply, just goes back to feeding him. “I called out of work for the rest of the week. Gotta take care of my baby.” He grins. Jeongguk rolls his eyes. He’s too tired to huff about what they are, and the selfish part of him can certainly acknowledge that it feels good to let someone take care of him.

Before he realizes, the evening comes and goes, and with it, most of the following day. He allows Namjoon to stay, to do with him what he mostly likes. Any time the alpha has a hand on him, he feels better, so he allows himself this. He can be selfish too. If Namjoon wants to stay and risk catching whatever, that’s fine.

It is decidedly not a heat. When Namjoon mentions it again the next day, Jeongguk feels a little more like himself, enough to stand upright and march out of the nest, locking the bathroom door while he takes a long shower alone. He’s too tired to kick the alpha out though - one look at the nest, completely intertwined with everything the alpha wore into the apartment, makes the omega exhausted to even think about dismantling, and it’s not like he’ll fit in anything Jeongguk wears.

He wakes up on the fourth morning of Namjoon staying with him feeling like a whole new person. Strangely enough, it is the most well rested he’s felt in years despite the less than restful routines. He should feel more - sore. From the illness, from the knots, but Jeongguk crawls out of his nest with a spring to his step and a lightness in his chest. Not even the completely bare fridge shelves sour his mood, nor the mess of dirty dishes stacked in the sink. Jeongguk brews his tea and stands in the sun on his balcony, inhaling, exhaling, nice and slow. He is a plant. He grows himself. He takes only what he needs, and he leaves what he doesn’t.

It isn’t until Namjoon lumbers into the kitchen, completely nude in front of his floor to ceiling windows, rubbing at his face and yawning, that Jeongguk cracks. “What are you doing?” he hisses. “Cover yourself up! Anyone could see!”

Namjoon smirks, reaching over his shoulder to steal a sip from his cup. He makes a face. “Baby, you didn’t leave me a single shred of clothing to wear. It’s all in the nest.”

Jeongguk dodges left, then right. His kitchen is spacious, damn it, but one alpha body is all it takes to fill it up, apparently! “How are you feeling?” Namjoon asks, successfully pinning Jeongguk in place to the counter. This time when he touches his forehead, his hand feels sweaty. Ugh.

“Hands off!” he yelps. “Who knows when was the last time you washed them, and my skin’s probably a wreck already!”

“Naw, you’re glowing.” Namjoon smiles until it overtakes his entire face, taking with it all of Jeongguk’s will. “That post heat glow is real. Damn.” He whistles.

Jeongguk freezes, the pit of his stomach falling through what feels like ice. How dare he. How dare he continually bring up something so hurtful? “Kim Namjoon.” He inhales deeply with every intention of calmly and directly addressing this. Instead, he says, “Get out, and don’t call.”

At first, Namjoon ignores him, riffling with one hand through a drawer. “Hey, do we have any of that assam you brought back from Kyoto? I know you’re gonna say I poison it with too much milk, but I totally bought more of the fancy sugar you like -”

“Namjoon.”

“-I just forgot it at home. Well, I didn’t know I would be here so long, right? But I’ll bring it next time. Promise. I can also bring-”

“Kim Namjoon, get the fuck out of my house!” The shrill note in his voice grates his own nerves, but it certainly works to catch the alpha’s attention. The tick in his jaw is noticeable, a foretold warning that might cow others, but not him. Jeongguk is not a same age peer, he is an older, established, dare he say on a good day, refined omega. He won’t mince words or intentions, and he won’t allow anyone to belittle his feelings- not about himself, about aging, or about what he has left to offer.

“Hey, baby -”

“No, don’t ‘baby’ me. I need you to leave, and leave me alone.” His bottom lip wobbles so hard it shocks him, so Jeongguk sucks it in before the tears get away from him.

“It’s hormones, sweetheart, let me take care of you-”

“GET OUT!”

For a moment, the silence between them hangs heavier than any before it. There had been miscommunication before, not to mention plenty of tension with Namjoon pushing for things Jeongguk couldn’t offer, but the alpha usually moped or joked his way back into Jeongguk’s arms, wiggling like a puppy and undeniably cute.

Not now, though.

The knot in the pit of his stomach is back. It’s hard to think with stinky alpha pheromones in the air, and maybe it’s time to accept that they not only clog his rationale, but also impede Jeongguk’s feelings. They’ve spent so much time together - so much time together - and for what? They aren’t courting. They aren’t even courting!

Another long moment of silence, stillness. The tension in Namjoon’s jaw releases, and his weight shifts. “Fine. I’ll go.” He pivots to stalk down the hall, and it’s so uncharacteristically silent as Jeongguk stands in a daze, waiting for the punch line, waiting for him to say anything, but he comes back out dressed in wrinkled and stained clothing.

Without a word, without a glance, Namjoon opens the front door and exits.

He doesn’t slam the door, but Jeongguk winces all the same when it shuts.

Then the tears happen, and he has more important things to address, like a ruined room and a growing need for a vat of ice cream that he can empty to fill with said tears.

It takes the rest of the weekend for him to even touch the room, so full of fatigue and listlessness, the likes of which Jeongguk hasn’t experienced since his father unexpectedly passed years prior. His stomach churns from the nerves, frayed and exposed with no one to make excuses for him. No friends, no mate, not even an alpha boy toy.

Most alarming of all, his phone stays mostly silent, other than a few work emergencies. He doesn’t hear from Namjoon, and other than a short exchange with Jimin including pictures of their favorite girl and the one time Taehyung checks in, likely to be worried about contagious germs, nothing from his friends.

He badgers Seokjin for attention, and the beta dupes him by showing up empty handed at the cafe in the building downstairs. “Did you honestly think I’d risk my future star’s health?” He turns up his nose, even though Jeongguk dons a mask and sits a respectable distance away.

“I doubt I’m contagious at this point.”

Seokjin hums, nose wrinkling. He’s quiet when he picks up his drink, at first looking steadfastly at the table in front of him before peering up at him with narrowed eyes. “Hyung, you smell-” His ears flush.

“I smell?” Jeongguk scoffs. Not a single friend left to his name, apparently. The betrayals just keep coming.

“You smell different, a little weaker.”

Of course. “I’ve been ill.” Sickness dampens or changes most people’s scents; he’d rather smell like nothing at all than a totally different scent, which happens to some.

“Not like that.” Seokjin waves his hand dismissively. “Your scent is weakened next to his.”

“What?” Jeongguk just wants to eat that croissant lovingly staring back at him. That’s all he wants. Instead, he sips at his tea and listens to his not-friend insult him.

“You smell like an alpha, okay? A healthy alpha.”

Frowning, Jeongguk listens to the comment, processes the comment, but doesn’t think anything of it. He just spent a lot of time with Namjoon. Of course he smells like him a little. He even wore one of his sweatshirts earlier that morning, although he didn’t detect anything really left of the alpha on it.

The croissant stares back.

Ugh.

“Gguk hyung, listen to me.” Seokjin’s lips purse, like a pout, but he can tell the difference. “Your scent smells like it’s mingling with another. Do you get what I’m saying?” He pronounces each word crisply, a presentation that Jeongguk doesn’t quite understand.

“Yeah, yeah.” Jeongguk touches his ear, then thinks better of it. Too close to his face, and his skin suffered the past week. “I’ve spent too much time with an alpha I have no business entertaining.”

Seokjin’s never said much about Namjoon before, and he thought it might have to do with being the younger in his own relationship, although the five year gap between him and Jimin was nothing compared to Namjoon and his. He knows the beta isn’t judgemental - he might loudly criticize, but his criticism has a way of being backhanded kind, something Jeongguk would love to learn from his hoobae.

“No, I think you smell like an omega that’s been fucked enough by an alpha to carry them,” Seokjin says, quickly and heated, brows furrowed. “You smelled pupped, hyung.”

Jeongguk laughs: loudly and easily.

Then he looks at Seokjin’s face and laughs some more. “That’s literally impossible,” he says when the laughter dies down into chuckling. Why does his stomach hurt so much from laughing? Ugh. He deserves that croissant, but he can’t afford the carb calories. They’re the worst. “Why are croissants all butter?” He sighs.

“Hyung, are you listening?” The pinch in Seokjin’s tone is apparent and in its own way, sweet, but Jeongguk shakes his head.

“I can’t have kids anymore, you know that. I wish you wouldn’t-”

“You can and I think are, hyung! When are you going to listen to me!” Seokjin shakes his fists in the air, then with a pout, rudely pulls out his phone and makes a call. To Jimin, of all people.

Thirty minutes later, Jimin arrives. The only reason Jeongguk stays past the hour is because Seokjin bought the last croissant and refused to eat it or offer it to him, just gloating about it. His mate slows to a stop before he reaches the table, eyes growing larger in his head.

“Where’s my baby girl?” Jeongguk asks, indignant.

“With Tae.” Jimin blinks, then steps to the side, making a wide circle around their table. “Holy shit! Jagiya, I think you’re right - he smells pregnant!”

Twenty minutes later filled with crescendos of screaming, the three of them make it out of a pharmacy with a plastic bag full of tests and shitty carbs, only to walk the too long walk to Taehyung’s place were Jeongguk’s princess greets them at the door with an elaborate dance for Seokjin and a kiss for Jimin, and nothing for him.

Not that he’s going to cry about it or anything. He hasn’t seen her in a while, and he knows adults only live in the memory of small children for so long. Taehyung looks between him and the variety of home tests now scattered across his hideously modern dining room table. “So - you were never in menopause?”

“Yes, I fucking was!” Jeongguk screeches, followed by a slow ten seconds where they all crane their necks slowly to see if Jiyoo was listening. She doesn’t react, seated on the floor with several dolls, glitter glue, and children’s scissors next to her.

She loves doing hair.

Jeongguk turns back to the table. It’s hardly possible under the weight of Jimin’s glare, the fucking hypocrite.

“All that time spent complaining.” Taehyung chuckles, dodging Jeongguk’s kick. Seokjin, however, does not dodge the next one. So much for his youthfulness among their group.

It’s Jimin who pushes him into Taehyung’s guest bathroom with the tests. It feels ridiculous, but Taehyung hovering in a cloud around him, sniffing here then sniffing there, was just as annoying. There’s no way it’s possible. There’s no way that it’s anything other than wildly fluctuating hormones on their death rattle, and yes, a lot of alpha knots.

“Congratulations, Jeongguk-ssi,” his physician says with the same tone used when he asked about one of Jeongguk’s moles on a prior visit. “You’re expecting.”

Jeongguk blinks once, then screams.

“You told me I was entering menopause!” he shouts, and he might feel shame for it later, but right now he faces betrayal from a medical professional who has been seeing him for almost two decades. How could this happen?

“You were.” His doctor swivels around on his chair to the computer, waving a hand over the lines on the screen. “You can see where things have declined in the past three years in particular, but see here? This spike? Something happened at this time. It threw your hormones into disarray, and from that window of time, you experienced side effects, which in your case, I can only theorize included increased fertility for this short time.”

Jeongguk feels the kind of fury that previously he associated with menopausal hormones. “But why wasn’t I informed this was a possibility?” he asks, as calmly as possible. Currently, he hunches over in the poorest posture possible to cradle his stomach.

Pregnant.

He has a puppy in there.

“To be honest with you, something like this isn't common enough to predict.” His doctor sighs, removing his eye glasses and rubbing his eyes in a way that makes Jeongguk feel even worse for his outburst. “If I might speak plainly with you, did you meet someone new in this timeframe? The sire of the pup?”

The chart on the computer in front of them tells a story of his relationship with Namjoon, from the day they met to now, plus one story he never thought would happen.

He departs the office with a different bouquet of brochures this time, walking out into the harsh daylight of past decisions with new clarity that he’d rather never discover.

Returned to work, Jimin paces with his arms crossed while Taehyung physically yanks files out of his hands. “Will you eat something? I swear, Seokjin never gave me half as much trouble, even during his worst morning sickness!”

“I ate through half a bakery this morning,” Jeongguk replies, dazed. Jimin stops with a little oh, then pleased smile.

“As you should! Leave these to me, okay, Jeonggukie!” Taehyung waves around the thick bundle of projects in his hands, the likes of which he does not have the authority to approve.

Jimin finds something to fuss with. “Still! Could you at least sip on this for me!”

Jeongguk almost laughs, because he’s never seen Jimin quite like this, manic with snacks and drinks covering most of his desk, his beta friend gesturing wildly. He recalls Seokjin’s pregnancy with the distant haze of time, but his friend, who could be overbearing on a good day about anything, with his perfectionist qualities, now had something (someone) new to obsessively worry over.

A few weeks ago, Jeongguk felt desperate for a moment of concern from his friends.

Be careful what you wish for.

“You already have a pup, you can’t have mine!” he (half) jokingly says to his friend. Jimin narrows his eyes and hisses; Jeongguk hisses right back.

“As if you haven’t been trying to steal her for years!”

“Because she’s perfect, but not as perfect as my pup will be!”

Jimin playfully acts like he’s lunging at him, and Jeongguk squawks, protecting his stomach. They both giggle, sounding and acting more like school children rather than the parents of would be school children.

He can’t believe it.

Pupped.

He’s pupped!

There’s just one problem -

And no one lets him forget for a second.

“Nothing yet?” Jimin asks when Jeongguk picks up his phone only to immediately click it off.

“You’re so annoying.” Jeongguk shrivels up in the unfashionable hoodie, too big to be anything but comforting. “Go home to your family.”

But Jimin merely sighs, dragging him by the hand home with him so he has to be confronted with the vision of Seokjin greeting Jimin at the door with a kiss and a table full of home cooked meal, their daughter already tucked into her booster chair, swinging her socked feet cutely with her hair done up in some elaborate braid.

Seokjin catches his tears before Jeongguk can wipe them away, quietly taking him by the hand into their cramped bathroom and washing his face for him. “I’m not a baby, you know.” He says it without any heat. “And I’m older than you!”

“And yet, you act like one.” Seokjin aggressively chases him with the hand towel, Jeongguk ducking away. “You need to contact him, hyung. You didn’t tell us what happened, but what I know is that he was all over you and now ignores you. His feelings must be hurt, or he must think it’s over.”

Jeongguk thumps his head into the wall. “And if that’s all true?”

Seokjin sighs. “Those things can be true at the same time as the fact you’re pregnant with his puppy. You don’t have to mate the guy, but you do need to be honest with him about the situation. You’ll work it out. Whatever that means for you both.”

While he understands that rationally it isn’t too early to know for sure, not with all of the modern tests available, Jeongguk bides more time, and if all his friends give him a lot of side eye for it, they respectfully bite their tongues. For the most part. Taehyung in particular pretends there is no alpha involved, it is all immaculate conception perhaps in his head, despite the fact that he was the biggest supporter of Namjoon previously.

His alpha friend goes with him to tell Jeongguk’s mom and brother, a confusing moment for them all because they assume Taehyung is the sire, a detail neither of them thought through until Taehyung and his brother return from their chase around the house, short of breath and ruddy cheeked.

His mother, for what it’s worth (and it’s worth a lot), remains too excited over the thought of her first (and likely only) grandchild. She could care less where they came from. “Here, you earned this,” Jeongguk says, holding over the stacked bags full of food they leave with. Taehyung looks between him and the contents, then takes one but selflessly leaves him the other.

Mama Jeon’s food is too powerful to decline, even if it means taking it from a pupped omega.

To be clear, Jeongguk was going to tell Namjoon. He was! In his own time! The most unfortunate part of mingling friend groups is that apparently Hoseok spots him out on his own one day, and unfortunately the other omega, without his knowledge, gets close enough to sniff him out. One moment, Jeongguk looks lovingly over a case of macarons, the next, he straightens right back into another person.

Hoseok’s wide eyes and open mouth are enough.

“It’s not what you think!” Jeongguk squeaks, realizing that although his stomach is still flat, maybe the tiniest bit bloated from eating more of what he wants these days, he was caressing it in an obvious way just before.

Hoseok does not respond. He takes one step back, then another, then flees the cafe. Jeongguk, always out of breath these days, chases after him to the sidewalk, but he’s too slow to catch the younger omega. “It’s just the bakery!” he shouts at no one, because Hoseok is gone. Cursing, Jeongguk knows he can’t put it off any longer. Risk another minute and he won’t be the one to tell him.

He calls Namjoon.

Nothing.

He calls him again within the hour and still nothing.

No phone call, no text message back asking if he needed something.

Jeongguk is fucked.

Surely Hoseok told him by now, even if he can only suspect.

He is so fucked.

With some reflection, he knows he hasn’t exactly acted his age with Namjoon. The curse of dating someone younger might be to act their age, or perhaps all along it was Namjoon acting older than his years to reflect Jeongguk. Regardless, Jeongguk knew he had to tell the alpha - never once was he planning to keep the pregnancy a secret, more so he wanted a little time to make sure everything was alright before telling him, and yes, selfishly maybe he was biding time to let Namjoon forgive him after kicking him out when the alpha only bent over backwards to take care of him during what he could not concede was a heat at the time…

Now it looks like he won’t be the one to disclose the news, and that hurts. It hurts more than he would have thought. But he is an adult - he is the elder in the relationship! He can suck it up, act mature, and apologize.

Jeongguk travels to Namjoon’s shitty apartment -

He sighs.

His totally fine and normal apartment -

Jeongguk can only be so mature.

He knocks at the front door.

No answer.

Determined not to let it drag out any longer, Jeongguk sits on the doorstep and waits. The hour is late, but Namjoon was never one to spend a lot of time at home other than to sleep, and it’s less than an hour later when the alpha steps out of the stairwell to find him.

“Hyung.” His voice sounds - both formal and concerned. The alpha walks quickly to him, helping him off the ground. His nostrils flare wide - if Hoseok hadn’t told him, Jeongguk wonders how obvious it is now. “Are you alright?”

What a question.

Jeongguk flips his hair back. “I came here to apologize.”

Namjoon’s jaw ticks. “And?”

“And.” Shit. They didn’t even make it inside. “You know. Share with you some news. Good news!” Good news for him, at least, but will Namjoon think it's good news?

Namjoon breaks. “Come in. I know how much you hate it here, but.” He shrugs, and Jeongguk winces, toeing off his shoes and sheepishly following.

The apartment is totally fine.

Tiny, cluttered, and definitely on the messy side, but it has everything one person could need.

It just didn’t have the right sheets or the right shower filter. Jeongguk needed a reliable air filtration system at his age and already he found himself struggling to breath, although when did he feel like he could breathe anymore?

“I’m sorry,” he says, shifting his weight back and forth. He wishes he still had his lip piercing to play with. “You did nothing wrong, and I overreacted. It’s not an excuse, but I’ve been feeling extra sensitive lately about -”

“Your age?”

“Everything.” Jeongguk scowls. “And yes, part of it is about my age and dating a much younger alpha.”

“So we can admit we’re dating now?” Namjoon smirks at him, but it isn’t the friendliest. Jeongguk cannot tell how this is going.

“My doctor told me something.” He shallows, heart thumping harder. As if he can hear it, Namjoon gets up from the couch to wrap an arm around him. “He phrased it differently, but essentially - your alpha fuck boy hormones overrided my perimenopausal hormones and created increased fertility because I was with someone so compatible and because-”

“Because?”

“-Because that person was so into me.” Jeongguk breathes out. “He said, and this is a direct quote - ‘It wouldn’t have been this side effect if not for the fact that alpha was wildly into you and subconsciously doing everything they could to trap you.’”

“Trap you?” Namjoon’s face rears back. “I wasn’t trying to trap you!”

“Okay, he said lock it down, you got me, but-”

“Hyung.” Namjoon laughs. He’s laughing, and it doesn’t sound upset or avoidant. “Can we please just be honest? I know it’s hard, but I’ve been waiting, and then Hoseok told me - well, he told me his suspicions.”

Jeongguk sighs. “I’m sorry. I was planning to tell you soon, but you know, it just seemed too good to be true, so I wanted to wait a little. I always thought I’d have a family, but then to be told it was too late, then months later, find out I actually might be pupped?”

It’s a different kind of jaw tick this time, one Jeongguk noticed the first time he agreed to let the alpha go down on him. It comes out only from time to time. He’s fortunate to catch it now, because Jeongguk can hardly look Namjoon in the face. “So - so it’s confirmed? You’re definitely pupped? I mean, I can smell it, but also, you’ve smelled so much like me for a while-”

Mortifying.

Shit, what if his weird ass heat wasn’t even when it happened? The doctor said it was hard to place, and it would fall into the range of when he conceived, but it could have been a week or even two weeks before the heat, according to him, and it’s not like they did a lot else when they were together.

No.

Jeongguk shakes his head. That kind of thinking led them here. They have been doing a lot more than sleeping together.

“Yes, we’re pupped.” He tries to smile as big as Namjoon as the alpha whoops, sweeping him into his arms and spinning him around. He has to laugh because it’s so Namjoon - if everyone else wants to walk on eggshells around him, this clumsy alpha never will. He lets himself put his face down on Namjoon’s shoulder and closes his eyes.

Nothing feels better than forgiveness.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I never could believe that you were seriously interested in me outside of fucking. And maybe funding your bottomless stomach.”

Namjoon runs a hand down the back of his head and neck, scruffing him there. “Hyung, I need to tell you something, and you have to listen: I love you.”

For all of his age and experience in things that perhaps don’t matter, one thing Jeongguk will not be so disingenuous as to think about Kim Namjoon is that he would not know love when he felt it, nor does he think the alpha would say it without meaning it. This is a man who Jeongguk has watched over the months in moments that made him roll his eyes, sure, but also made him believe that good was still a natural quality some people were born with.

“You don’t have to be in love with me - not this moment, maybe not ever, but I’m here for you, and whatever it looks like, I’ll help you.”

Jeongguk was fully aware ugly tears were a possibility of the day, but he didn’t expect for them to happen in Namjoon’s lap while the alpha rubbed his back and massaged his feet at the same time. Jeongguk expected to be groveling at his feet.

Namjoon really is too good.

Too forgiving.

“You should be upset with me!” he yells, thumping him lightly at the back of the head. “I’ve treated you like shit! Don’t let anyone get away with that!”

“You didn’t treat me like shit!” Namjoon laughs, ducking away from him, so big dimpled and so handsome. “You were maybe a little guarded, but I’m glad! Your exes sound like assholes!”

Namjoon claps his hands around Jeongguk’s cheeks. In the alpha’s presence, it’s easy to forget he’s older. Namjoon is fun and bright, full of life in all those cliche ways that Jeongguk wishes he could claim.

He needs some of that in his life.

He even thinks he might -

He might love it.

Love him.

It feels somehow easier to admit, sitting in the dingy lighting of the alpha’s apartment. Jeongguk sighs, face swollen from crying. And increased sodium intake. Not at all the carbs, and he can’t even blame the baby. Yet.

There is a lot to discuss, because Jeongguk is the type to get bogged down in logistics; his work really has made a monster out of him, and he doesn’t want to be someone who never lives in the moment. That’s how he got here. If he weren’t so busy cataloguing every part of Namjoon’s life and actions, maybe he would have seen the obvious, or at the very least, felt it.

“Make room for two babies!” Namjoon says happily, breezily, while squeezing him more than strictly medically suggested.

“Yeah, yeah.” Jeongguk sighs. This isn’t an argument he will ever win. “I’ll always be your first baby.”

Namjoon chuckles, chest vibrating with it. It’s so nice to have his favorite spot back to nuzzle and rest his face. Jeongguk sighs dreamily, nose buried between the alpha’s pecs. “No, I meant that literally. Twins run my family. Almost everyone has a set, except for one of my cousins.”

Jeongguk slowly looks up at him, dawning horror taking over.

“She had triplets.”

Leveled with new information, Jeongguk cries off and on for the next six weeks before the doctor gives them their first ultrasound when they’ll know for sure, but Namjoon keeps one of Jeongguk’s hands locked in his, and in the other, he carries a box full of his favorite pastries. They’ll either celebrate, or celebrate.

‘This is your fault,” Jimin happily tells him. “You spent so much time in denial about menopause and how you’ll never have children-”

“I was in menopause!” Jeongguk interjects. Namjoon merely pats his knee, because the alpha has more than once attempted to educate him about perimenopause, but alphas don’t get to educate anyone on anything.

“-That now you have to have them all at once!”

“Might as well go for three while I’m at it then!” Jeongguk threatens.

Jiyoo isn’t in their vicinity, but she’s around, and he will be her favorite. Definitely not Namjoon, just because he can lift her the highest and fastest.

Luckily, they have two of their own.

One of them is bound to like Jeongguk best.

…Right?

(If not, Namjoon promises in his mating vows to love him the most, always.

Jeongguk definitely does not cry or believe him.)